Photos: Michelle Obama in Colorado

FOUNTAIN — First Lady Michelle Obama told a crowd of roughly 1,800 crammed into a school gym in Fountain that she believed the country has come too far in four years to go back to policies that took the country to the brink of disaster.

The economy was on the verge of collapse, losing 800,000 jobs every single month, and newspapers were using words like meltdown and calamity, when her husband came into office, she said.

"Know this, together, slowly but surely, we have been pulling ourselves out of the hole we started in and making real change," Michelle Obama said. "Are we going to just sit back and let everything we worked and fought for just slip away? Or are we going to keep moving this country forward. We always move forward in America."

Fountain, a town of about 26,000 people 10 miles south of Colorado Springs in El Paso County, lies near Interstate 25, Fountain Creek and Fort Carson Army Base. The sound of shooting or artillery at the base echoed throughout the valley Wednesday morning.

Many in the crowd, like Joan Turner, drove down from Colorado Springs for the event.

"I think she's awesome. I really want to see her," Turner said. "Too bad she's not running. But I also like (Barack) Obama."

Michelle Obama is on a two-day campaign swing through the state, with her next stop planned late Wednesday afternoon at Fort Lewis College in Durango. On Thursday she's scheduled to appear in the morning at the Douglas County Fairgrounds in Castle Rock.

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In Fountain, where doors to her rally opened at 9 a.m., the line was blocks long and residential streets were clogged with parked cars. Supporters were shoe-horned into the smallish Dean Fleischauer Activity Center, which later this month will host a kids kickboxing tournament.

The capacity crowd waited hours, at times crooning prettily to Motown tunes, such as "Let's Stay Together." They reprised the refrain even after the piped-in music faded from the speakers and applauded themselves.

Michelle Obama took the small makeshift platform around 2 p.m. She told the roaring crowd she loves talking about her husband. He's handsome and smart, she said, but she married him for his character — his compassion and decency. She said he treated the women in his family, his mother and grandmother, with great respect and tenderness.

"Barack didn't care whether health care reform was the easy thing to do politically," she said. "He cared it was the right thing to do."

She said her husband had women's backs when it came to equal pay for equal work, and in ensuring that preventive health care, such as contraception, is covered by insurance.

"He will make sure we women have the right to make our own decisions about our bodies," Obama said.

When people ask what this president has done for our country, she said, "here's just a few things you can tell them.

"Tell them about the millions of jobs Barack has created. Tell them about the millions of kids who can afford to go to college (with Pell grants). Tell them about how Barack ended the war in Iraq. Tell them how together we took out Osama bin Laden. Tell them how Barack has fought to help military families."

She said Obama's health care reform has meant better coverage of prescriptions for seniors, extended coverage of young adults by their parents, no lifetime limits on coverage of serious illnesses and no getting shut out of coverage because of pre-existing conditions.

She said Obama and his supporters believe in an America where "every child has good school that push and inspire them, where no one goes broke because someone got sick, and no one loses their home because someone lost a job."

"None of us gets where we are on our own, there is always a community of people who lifts us up," Obama said. "When one of us stumbles a little, ... we extend a helping hand while they get back on their feet."

Referring to rival Mitt Romney's promise to cut dollars to PBS and Big Bird, Obama said Americans know "cutting Sesame Street is no way to cut a budget — short-changing our kids is not how we tackle our budget."

Before deciding to come to the rally, Rebecca Seal, of Colorado Springs, said she asked her 9-year-old daughter Cristalin to give her five good reasons why they should brave the crush to see Michelle Obama. Her daughter recited the answer that persuaded her mother.

"It's a once-in-a-lifetime thing," Cristalin said, gripping her mother's hand. "She's a nice lady. She helps people and kids. She is the First Lady. It's an important election for the country."

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